Game 26: Needed, Wanted Win

Saturday

Nov 30, 2013 at 12:01 AMNov 30, 2013 at 4:26 AM

Ten days ago, in the heartless tundra of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, the Blue Jackets suffered an inglorious 7-0 loss to the upstart Oilers. It was the type of loss that lingers and aches, like a bad bruise.

The Blue Jackets welcomed Edmonton to Nationwide Arena last night. After working up a 4-0 lead through two periods, the Blue Jackets seemed hellbent on hanging a "touchdown" of their own on the Oilers.

Ultimately, the Jackets were fortunate to simply hang on.

The Jackets survived four minor penalties in a sloppy third period and won 4-2 before 14,360.

"(The 7-0 loss) was in the back of our minds," Blue Jackets defenseman Fedor Tyutin said. "We were embarrassed up there. Every guy in the room ...

Ten days ago, in the heartless tundra of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, the Blue Jackets suffered an inglorious 7-0 loss to the upstart Oilers. It was the type of loss that lingers and aches, like a bad bruise.

The Blue Jackets welcomed Edmonton to Nationwide Arena last night. After working up a 4-0 lead through two periods, the Blue Jackets seemed hellbent on hanging a "touchdown" of their own on the Oilers.

Ultimately, the Jackets were fortunate to simply hang on.

The Jackets survived four minor penalties in a sloppy third period and won 4-2 before 14,360.

"(The 7-0 loss) was in the back of our minds," Blue Jackets defenseman Fedor Tyutin said. "We were embarrassed up there. Every guy in the room was motivated for this one."

Ryan Johansen, Artem Anisimov, Nick Foligno and Jack Skille scored goals for the Blue Jackets, while Matt Calvert had two assists and hounded the puck all night.

Goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky had 25 saves to win a showdown with his close friend, fellow Russian and former Philadelphia teammate Ilya Bryzgalov, who was signed by Edmonton earlier this month and made his second start last night.

The Blue Jackets took a 1-0 lead at 7:50 of the first period when Johansen curled into the left faceoff circle and wristed a puck through Bryzgalov, Johansen's ninth goal of the season.

The Blue Jackets' forecheck was working. It created ample turnovers, forced the Oilers to defend and play without the puck, and kept the Blue Jackets in the Oilers' zone for long stretches of time.

In other words, it was nothing like the loss in Edmonton earlier this month, when the Oilers ran a track meet.

The benefit arrived in the second.

Anisimov redirected a shot by Matt Calvert on the power play at 3:34 of the second.

The Blue Jackets added a 5-on-3 goal at 10:30 of the second when Foligno buried a soft feed from Boone Jenner in the slot.

A breakaway goal by Jack Skille – he wired a shot from the high slot that blurred past Bryzgalov under the crossbar to make it 4-0.

The Blue Jackets had big plans for the third period. Would they go for two?

Early in the third, there was one sequence where the puck appeared to be in the Blue Jackets' possession and four Jackets' flew the zone with afterburners charged.

Looked like the early days of the Rick and Nik show, before Sergei Fedorov showed them how to play without the puck.

"I hope we weren't (piling on)," Blue Jackets coach Todd Richards said. "My message to the group wasn't 'Go out and score more goals.' I wanted to see us continue to play a hard game and make it difficult on them.

"We went the opposite direction. We took some penalties starting with the first shift of the third, and it gave them life. You could see they had some energy."

Edmonton's Sam Gagne fired an odd-angle shot from the corner below the goalline at 10:36 and Jordan Eberle scored a power play goal at 15:39 to make it 4-2. A touch of anxiety crept into Nationwide.

"It's unfortunate to let in a couple at the end there," Skille said. "But they have skill players. If you give them power plays, they're going to eventually put it in the net.

"I felt like we played our game in the first two periods, and you could see how effective that was. That's a hard team to keep quiet for 60 minutes."

Side dishes:

-- The Blue Jackets flew to Boston immediately after the game in advance of Saturday's game vs. the Bruins. The Jackets haven't won back-to-back games in over a month. Oct. 25 was the last time, in fact.

-- You'll find Matt Calvert listed as the game's No. 1 star Satuday's editions of the The Dispatch. He didn't score a goal, I know. But I thought he was the player with the most impact on the game, especially early when the Blue Jackets dictated their presence.

-- Johansen has 1-1-2 and a plus-1. He also led the club with five shots on goal and won 11 of 17 faceoffs.

-- Boone Jenner's assist was the first of his NHL career. These kids are just growing up so fast.

-- Oilers coach Dallas Eakins does not keep a sugar bowl at his ready. Here's what he said after the game: "Our first power play was just abysmal. We weren't ready to go right out of the game. Even though I thought we slowly fought back, there were a lot of head-shaking moments, not just for the coaches but for the players. We just seemed a second late all night."

-- Aaron Portzline

-- aportzline@dispatch.com

-- twitter: @aportzline

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